LAHORE: The Punjab government has made four senior policemen (grade-21) officers on special duty (OSD) within hours of appointment of Aamir Zulfiqar as new inspector general of Police Punjab.

The development caused a concern among Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) cadres as to what prompted the government to “remove so suddenly” four senior police officers from their respective posts.

Meanwhile, the federal government also transferred Bilal Siddiuqe Kamyana, Deputy Director General of IB, Islamabad, and placed his services at the disposal of the Punjab government.

The transfer has also raised many an eyebrow as Mr Kamyana is said to be in bad books of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and PML-Q when he was serving as Lahore capital city police officer (CCPO).

Official says govt wants to give IG ‘authoritative’ position

The Parvez Elahi government had removed him from the post of the CCPO and surrendered his services to the Establishment Division (ED), declaring that he was [allegedly] ‘favouring’ the PML-N.

The four police officers, who have been made OSDs, included additional IG police investigation Ghulam Rasool Zahid, additional IG establishment B.A Nasir, additional IG south Punjab Ehsan Sadiq and additional IG welfare Farooq Mazhar.

Sharing background of the government’s move, a senior official said all the officers were batchmates [19th Common] of the newly-appointed IG Aamir Zulfiqar.

He said Mr Zahid was posted as acting IG and he was transferred and directed to report to the S&GAD, the same day of his appointment.

He said as soon as the notification of Mr Zulfiqar’s appointment surfaced, the Punjab government suddenly removed all of his batchmates.

There were conflicting reports about the motives and one of the prime reasons was that both sides, including the IG and his batchmates, might not be ‘comfortable’ with each other.

The official said the government wanted to give the IG an ‘authoritative position’ and it was possible only by replacing his batchmates with relatively junior officials. On the other side, some reports suggested that the senior police officers, made OSD, were themselves not willing to serve under the command of their batchmate IG.

The official said moment they learnt that Mr Zulfiqar had been appointed new IG, they wanted an ‘honourable exit’ from the province. He said with the transfer of the four BS-21 policemen, the next challenge would be the selection of appropriate officials to fill the posts due to non-availability of officers in the same grade.

He said the only option for the government would be to replace them by DIG-ranked officers.

About the transfer of Mr Kamyana, the official said he may be the next choice for new Lahore CCPO as the police circles believed that he would not like to hold a non-field assignment at Central Police Office because of his previous task in IB which was [relatively] ‘authoritative’ as compared to any other in CPO Punjab.

Sources said a massive reshuffle across the province is expected after the posting of the new IG.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2022